


Cold

by akamine_chan



Series: Cold [1]
Category: due South
Genre: Community: ds_snippets, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-11
Updated: 2009-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-05 09:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan/pseuds/akamine_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could feel her heartbeat in her fingers when he put them in his mouth.  Faint, so faint that he was almost sure he imagined it; a soft, slow thump that finally convinced him she was still alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Into A Far Country](https://archiveofourown.org/works/255975) by [keerawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa). 



> Written for the LiveJournal Community ds_snippets
> 
> Notes: Unbeta'd. Two lines taken from Gerald Manly Hopkins' [The Windhover](http://www.bartleby.com/122/12.html). Flip side to _Frozen_.

He could feel her heartbeat in her fingers when he put them in his mouth. Faint, so faint that he was almost sure he imagined it; a soft, slow thump that finally convinced him she was still alive.

He couldn't feel the cold anymore and that worried the rational part of his mind.

The wind had stopped howling and there was only a crystalline silence. He drifted away, a strange almost-warmth stealing over him, soothing him. If he could just rest for a moment...his eyelids fluttered shut and all he could see was the darkness.

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a shadowed forest, snow on the ground and a full moon high in an unfamiliar sky. In the distance, he heard the mournful song of a solitary wolf and the lonely sound sent a shiver down his back.

He started walking without any clear idea of where he was going, following an instinctive tug _that_ way. It started to snow, fluffy flakes that floated to the ground and sparkled in the moonlight. The snow muffled the sound of his footsteps and he could hear the wind blowing through the trees, whispering silent secrets to him.

_...In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing..._

After a time, he found himself on the lee side of a rocky mountain, the moon bright enough to keep him sure-footed. He saw the flutter of cloth, colorless in the moonlight, and felt drawn to it. He pushed aside the coat with its make-shift lean-to and found them. A man and a woman, huddled together, blue and white with cold, still and lifeless.

Realization seeped into him, like fire after the freeze, slow and final. He covered them with the coat and turned away.

_...Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion._

-fin-


End file.
